


Sleep well strategy

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Diego being wholesome, Domestic Fluff, Five being sleepy, Gen, Nightmares, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Sleep Terrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Five can't sleep. Diego offers some help.A sweet moment between brothers.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves
Comments: 9
Kudos: 267





	Sleep well strategy

He didn't sleep much.

One could even say that he barely slept.

Five was... haunted.

So he found things to do, not to need to sleep. He would look for clues, visit Vanya at her place, get ahead with the commission, find Luther, get a cup of coffee... He barely slept. It was a conscious voluntary decision, and he was trying to keep it up as long as possible.

As long as he was awake, Five could distract himself, could even pretend he was whole, could pretend he was okay. While he was awake and had something to do he was able to escape from his demons. But they were always there when he closed his eyes, ready to jump at him, ready to eat him.

The Handler, reminding him with a gun of them debt he owed.

The apocalypse with its poison air and absolute hoplessness.

He had 

Dad.

His siblings' bodies, barely discernible in the rubble.

All the people he killed. He hadn't forgotten the face of any of them.

Every of the many assassins sent to kill him.

He had so much fuel for nightmares that he hadn't slept properly... Well, probably in years. Sobhe avoided sleep and ran mostly on coffee, survival instinct and spite. And it had worked so far...

But lately, it was getting harder. His teenage body required more sleep than his old man one, and sometimes he found himself closing his eyes in the middle of the day, being sleepy at nearly all hours. And now... The end of the world was no more, and they were supposed to be able to rest. Take a break.

But Five didn't want that. Monsters got him when he slept. Himself the first one.

So he kept going, kept pushing himself, kept staying awake... But it was getting harder. They all had limits and Five had probably reached his a long time ago.

His head hurt and was blurry. His memory was flaking out on him. He was yawning constantly.

Now, Five wasn't a person that scared easily, but going to bed...

So he was in the kitchen of the mansion, nursing a cup of very bad coffee, trying to think of something to do, some way to entertain himself. He could barely read, all the words dancing and jumbling together. Math was out of the question too. He could go out, technically, but it was raining and he was already feeling quite chilled. No, that wouldn't do.

As he was wallowing in his stubborn sleepiness, someone came down to the kitchen. Diego, coming back from some vigilante nonsense. He looked at Five with a frown.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"Shouldn't you be... less... dumb..."

"If that's the best insult you can come up with, you really need sleep."

Sadly, it was. His head refused to cooperate with him in creating in full thoughts and making proper remarks. Gods, he was so tired. But he knew that drinking himself to sleep was not a possibility if he wanted to live to an age when he could actually legally drink. And besides, he didn't like being dependent on anything (that wasn't coffee, that is).

"Do you have any issues with your bed? With the room? You could always crash in a couch."

Diego meant well. For all the names he called him, Five thought that Diego was trustworthy and determined. And generally, a good hearted person. He really meant well, Five knew. And he was way too tired to be his usual caustic self and blow him off, so he just looked forlornly at his coffee cup hoping to be left alone.

"You look like shit, Five." he knew it. He was pale and pasty and had terrible rings under his eyes. But Five'd been hoping no one noticed. "Have you been sleeping at all?"

"What do you care? Don't you have an old lady to save or something?"

It was a weak retort, Five knew, but Diego took offense easily. Maybe he would react to Five's mocking tone by leaving. That would be nice. 

Diego didn't leave. By now he was familiar enough with Five's deflection tactics to not let it get to him. Not tongo just so easily. 

He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat next to Five, trying to reach the subject in a way that wouldn't be shut down.

"I used to have nightmares too, you know. Would tired myself out not to dream, but sometimes it was inevitable. And sometimes you were in them."

"In your nightmares? Did you hate me that much?"

"The nightmares weren't of you, you just were in them sometimes, after you disappeared. You were hurt, and you were asking for my help, but I could never reach you. I found you after so long, and you needed mty help, but I couldn't help you. It was shit."

Five said nothing, but was a bit touched that Diego caree enough to even dream about him.

"Sometimes you gotta tire yourself, but other times... Just knowing that shit is a dream can help. I used to look at your painting, and you know, tell you that I was going to help you. Promise it, visualize it. It helped. Maybe it'll help you too." 

Five raised an eyebrow. What? 

, Visualizing it, I mean. you know... Remind yourself you're at home, remind yourself that you're not alone or with any of those creepy time assassin people, yeah? Maybe... Maybe you could have a picture of all of us around, look at it before bed? So your brain... Like knows where and when it is. Yeah? That gotta help. I'll lend you some of the albums we have around and and... Sleep well selfie?"

"Sleep well selfie?"

"Well, I'm not going to go around waking the others, but I can send you some pics of then I have around and we can take one of us, so you know that like you too are in this timeline where I'm also there. And you know, will protect you if time people come. More of them assassins or whatever."

Normally, Five would have laughed at the idea. But narcotics where apparently not the best idea on a still developing brain (damn you, treacherous teenage body) and he was getting a bit desperate. And Diego was so convinced... Yeah, he could be a bit simple, sometimes, but that didn't mean that all his ideas were useless, right? There was something sharp in his head, like a knife cutting through his skull, reminding him that yeah, he actually needed sleep. Well, why not try?

He took a picture with Diego, looking dead to the world, while his vigilante brother looked smug. 

He felt really proud of having helped Five, Five who was so impossible to reach, who always could handle everything on his own. 

And so Five finally went to bed with the picture on the phone next to his bed, and another one of all of them together in the night table. 

Diego felt like the best brother in the world. He had his most reticent brother with a serious issue like not sleeping! He hadn't just snapped and walked away! Maybe now that he could sleep properly he would be less of a pain! 

He'd managed it! 

(He hadn't managed shit. Three hours later Diego discovered what exactly night terrors were, when he was startled as he sharpened some knives by the most gut wrenching screams he'd ever heard, and found poor Five flailing, screaming against his pillow, tears falling in spite of him being still asleep, face scrunched up in pain. NO wonder he didn't want to sleep, the boy was suffering) 

Ok so maybe the sleep well selfies were not enough. Maybe it was a work in progress. But that didn't mean that je was giving up. 

That night, he helped Five ground himself, know where he wasz and perhaps he cleaned Five's face and held him a bit while he was still quite out of it. And he would find a way to help Five in the long run too, that he vowed. This wouldn't be like in his dreams, where Five was hurting and he couldn't do shit. He would fix it. 

And dissolve, with determination and as much stubbornness as necessary, all the nightmares, his and his mean brother's. 

Five would pass from barely sleeping to sleeping like the baby he was. 

Somehow. 

Shit, where to start? 

**Author's Note:**

> This is terrible but I wrote it on the bus, and thought, hehe why not share?
> 
> Thanks for reading and if you liked, please comment ;)


End file.
